People, place, race, and nation in Xinjiang, China : territories of identity / David O'Brien, Melissa Shani Brown.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

O'Brien, David (Asianist), author.

Brown, Melissa Shani, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Racism--China--Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu.

Racism.

Uighur (Turkic people)--China--Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu.

Uighur (Turkic people).

Chinese--China--Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu.

Chinese.

Ethnic relations.

Race relations.

Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu (China)--Race relations.

Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu (China).

Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu (China)--Ethnic relations.

China--Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu.

Physical Description:

xv, 353 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Singapore : Palgrave Macmillan, [2022]

Summary:

In one of the only works drawing on interviews with both Uyghurs and Han in Xinjiang, China, and postcolonial perspectives on ethnicity, nation, and race, this book explores how forms of banal racism underpin ideas of self and other, assimilation and modernisation, in this restive region. Significant international attention has condemned the CCPs use of forced internment in re-education camps, as well as its campaign of cultural assimilation. In this wider context, this book focuses upon the ways in which ethnic difference is writ through the banalities of everyday life: who one trusts, what one eats, where one shops, even what time ones clocks are set to (Xinjiang being perhaps one of the only places where different ethnic groups live by different time-zones). Alongside chapters focusing upon the coercive re-education campaign, and the devastating Urumchi Riots in 2009, this book also unpacks how discourses of Chinese nationalism romanticise empire and promote racialised ways of thinking about Chineseness, how cultural assimilation (Sinicisation) is being justified through the rhetoric of modernisation, how Islamic sites and Uyghur culture are being secularised and commodified for tourist consumption. We also explore Uyghur and Han perspectives, including of each other, giving insight into the diversity of opinions within both groups. Based on many years of living and working in China, and fieldwork and interviews specifically in Xinjiang, this book will be valuable to a variety of readers interested in the region and Uyghur and Han identity, ethnic/national identities in contemporary China, and racisms in non-western contexts. David OBrien is a Research Associate with the Faculty of East Asian Studies, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, Germany. His research focusses on ethnic identity in contemporary China and the interplay between ethnicity and politics. Melissa Shani Brown is affiliated with the Faculty of East Asian Studies, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, Germany. Her research interests include the conceptual uses of silence in critical theory and cultural texts, and intersectionality. .

Contents:

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. Being and Becoming Chinese: Nation, Ethnicity, Race in Xinjiang

Chapter 3. Killing the Weeds: The Re-education Camps, Carcinogenic Culture, and Techniques of Modernization

Chapter 4. Everyday Others: ethnic divides in Xinjiang

Chapter 5. The Ethnicity of Time: Policing Identity through Practices

Chapter 6. Ethnic Difference as a Mortal Threat: the Urumchi Riots

Chapter 7. The Past as Envisioned for the Future: Sinicizing Historicized identities in Xinjiang

Chapter 8. Eating the Other: Assimilation and Commodification of Ethnic Difference

Chapter 9. Becoming-Modern: Sinicization, Existential Threats, and Secular Time

Chapter 10. Conclusion: Futures of the New Frontier.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Electronic version: O'Brien, David (Asianist). People, place, race, and nation in Xinjiang, China.

ISBN:

9789811937750

9811937753

OCLC:

1338668061

Publisher Number:

99992599380